1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus provided for facsimile equipment, a copying machine, a printer, and the like. More particularly, the invention relates to the structure that drives discharging rollers of a recording sheet for the recording apparatus.
2. Related Background Art
FIG. 9 is a view that shows the structure of the conventional carrier mechanism used in general for a recording sheet. In FIG. 9, a conveying roller 13 and a pinch roller 18 are arranged to pinch a recording paper that serves as recording sheet, for example, and a recording head 11, which is installed on the downstream side of the conveying roller 13 in the sheet conveying direction X, performs recording. Then, a first discharging roller 16 and a second discharging roller 17, which are arranged on the downstream side of the recording head 11 in the sheet conveying direction X, expel the recording sheet.
Here, the driving force (or driving power) or of a motor 14 is transmitted to the conveying roller 13. Further, the first discharging roller 16 and the second discharging roller 17 are fixed to a platen (not shown). Then, the driving force is transmitted to the first discharging roller 16 and the second discharging roller 17 from the carrier gear 13a provided for one end of the conveying roller 13 through transmission gears 21 and 22.
In the structure shown in FIG. 9, two discharging rollers are used to obtain the stabilized posture of a recording sheet after the trailing end of the recording sheet has passed the conveying roller 13.
Conventionally, there has been a difference in the conveyance precision between the area where the recording sheet is conveyed by use of the conveying roller and the area where the recording sheet is conveyed by use of only the discharging roller. Conventionally, the text printing and graphic printing have been the main operations in outputting images, and the difference in such conveyance precision has not presented any serious problem. However, with the enhancement of image quality of a recording apparatus in recent years, there is intensified a tendency to record picture images up to the maximum recordable area of a recording sheet. Along with this tendency, it has been desired to improve the conveyance precision of a recording sheet in the area where the recording sheet is conveyed only by use of the discharging roller so as to make the difference in the sheet conveyance precision smaller between this area and the areas where the recording sheet is conveyed by the conveying roller.
However, in the conventional example described above, the discharging roller is arranged in a position far away from the driving source. As a result, the number of gears needed for transmitting driving force from the driving source to the discharging roller becomes larger inevitably. Under the such circumstances, particularly in the structure having a plurality of discharging rollers arranged in the sheet conveying direction, it has not been realized to obtain the feed precision sufficiently satisfactory for the discharging roller positioned on the outermost downstream side in the sheet conveying direction, whereas this feed precision dominantly determines the conveyance precision of a recording sheet by use of the discharging rollers.